Those people who translate free software to other languages (for example, I translate from English to Catalan), has realised that Ubuntu is not as good as we could think.

First of all, Ubuntu uses Rosetta in order to organize the translations. It seems is a good and easy system to do it, but there is an important problem: Rosetta is not free software.

Second, translations done by this way can’t be used in other distributions, so it’s necessary to translate again something if other distribution wants to use that software.

I know my explanation isn’t very good. For that reason it’s better to read the article in wingolog.

Someone has proposed it at the BrainStorm area. It is a good idea to vote it.

Some weeks ago, Richard Stallman came to Barcelona and we had the occasion to ask him about what he thinks about Ubuntu and what are the distributions that he (and the fsf) recommends.

About Ubuntu, Stallman said to us that it is just a way to arrive to the free software, but it is not a real solution because Ubuntu includes a lot of privative software (towards the CD or the repositories).

So, that was the reason why next logical question was “which distributions do you recommend?”. Stallman told about UTUTO, MUSIX and the one in which development the FSF are actively involved: gNewSense. gNewSense is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu.

Two days ago we knew that there was published a new beta release for gNewSense 2.0. This new release is based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, the artwork has been changed, the default internet browser will be Epiphany and they removed some non-free GLX modules from X/mesa.

It must be clear that this is a distribution for a purist users. You have to think that even if this release is compatible with a lot of hardware, there are other hardware that will not be supported, so you will have to use some privative modules, so your system won’t be totally free… so maybe it’s better to use other distribution.

Of course the correct way is to buy hardware compatible with GNU/Linux. Anyway, if you want to try it, here are the links to download and the release announcement.

• Donwload | gNewSense 2.0 beta
• Link | Release announcement